Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

[Inky]

Originally Posted by naloth

Neither of your definitions fit how I view Beastial. From Basic, it's anyone lacking a concept of morality (right/wrong), propriety (manners), or property (ownership in the abstract). Animals don't worry about sniffing each other, defecating in public, or making others feel bad even if they are domesticated. Animals regard toys and treats as fair game for whomever can claim it. You'll find these behaviors in domestic as well as wild animals.

Basic didn't include Bestial in the domestic animal meta-trait, but it probably should have. I suspect they were trying to make domestic and wild similar value so you could just swap them out.

It also doesn't see to mirror Cultural Familiarity very well. First off, animals aren't expected to observe cultural normals (dress code, behavior). Second, the costs and penalties don't align (B23). Lack of Cultural Familiarity gives you a reaction penalty to others. Bestial means you can't comprehend the reasons to behave. Third, humans are just as likely to make social faux pas dealing with other humans of a different culture using strange manners or different morality.

Originally Posted by RyanW

A domesticated animal can learn things like when the harness is on I'm on the job, I'm supposed to defecate in the box, food on the table isn't for me, etc.

That was the kind of thing I meant, yes. If domestic animals not having Bestial is intentional, then it looks like those kind of animal-level "human manners" are what Bestial refers to.

Originally Posted by naloth

Beastial doesn't prevent you from learning. A domesticated animal doesn't understand why it has to do the job, but it can be trained to do it especially if there's a tangible reward. Cats aren't really trained to use a box so much as they instinctively use sand like areas. Dogs are "housebroken" but mostly it involves treats and a mix of discipline. I suspect none of the above are capable of appreciating the "why" such behavior is enforced which is exactly the point of Beastial.

Originally Posted by naloth

I wasn't trying to convey that impression. In fact I only referenced three types of relatively abstract constructs: morality, manners, and abstract ownership. I also didn't address any reasons why animals don't generally comprehend these things. It could be that we just lack the way to convey the meaning to them. For that matter, I'd consider Beastial just as appropriate for a wild human that's never had any exposure to those concepts.

My point was that Beastial is just as appropriate for domestic as wild animals. I haven't heard of a significant difference in a domestic vs wild animal's ability to distinguish between morality, manners, or property ownership.

That's a pretty difficult thing to study - it's hard to tell whether an animal you don't share a language with has any such concepts. (Though, as oneofmanynameless pointed out, that might mean that they wouldn't have such concepts, as their mothers don't (as far as we know) have enough language to teach them anything so abstract).

And, similarly, if that is what Bestial means it might be difficult to use in game terms, because it's hard to get from that to what difference having those abstract concepts, as opposed to having just learnt from experience that people make a fuss if you do certain things, would make in terms of what the animal actually does.

[oneofmanynameless]

It almost seems like Bestial is basically just a "odius personal habit (behaves like a wild animal)" combined with an appropriate belief system of "I have no idea what 'civilized' even means." All rolled together into one trait?

[naloth]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

It almost seems like Bestial is basically just a "odius personal habit (behaves like a wild animal)" combined with an appropriate belief system of "I have no idea what 'civilized' even means." All rolled together into one trait?

That's close to how I treat it. I'd call it "behaves like an animal because it doesn't grasp why to behave differently." It's not necessarily an OPH because others tend to make allowances (dogs will be dogs) for accepted animal behavior. There's no additional negative reason modifier a human would have for an animal acting according to their nature. Those modifiers would come from phobias or intolerances for that type of animal.

I still haven't seen a reason to separate domestic from wild animals. Wild animals can learn which leaves usually not attacking humans. That doesn't seem to be worth 15 points.

Originally Posted by Inky

That was the kind of thing I meant, yes. If domestic animals not having Bestial is intentional, then it looks like those kind of animal-level "human manners" are what Bestial refers to.

Wild animal learn behaviors at least as complex and in many cases very similar to the ones you're referring to. I was watching the nature show Cumberbach narrated yesterday and many of those wild animals got more training than the pets I'm living with.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by naloth

I still haven't seen a reason to separate domestic from wild animals. Wild animals can learn which leaves usually not attacking humans. That doesn't seem to be worth 15 points.

An easier approach is to say that if a wild animal learns "civilized" manners it has bought off Bestial.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by whswhs

An easier approach is to say that if a wild animal learns "civilized" manners it has bought off Bestial.

... which is what distinction? Farm animals are supposedly "civilized" but I can tell you from experience that it doesn't take much for a sow or bull to want to hurt you. Besides "manners" is small and very subjective component of Beastial. As mentioned previously mentioned, humans from different areas often consider various behaviors suitably uncivilized just based on social norms.

[oneofmanynameless]

After some thought and reading through things I created this meta-trait.

Animalistic Intelligence: Non-Linguistic* [-10*], Non-Iconographic [-10], TL 0** [var (-40 at tl 8)], Innumerate [-5], Hidebound [-5], Dyslexia [-10].

*: Non-Linguistic is a trait that doesn't exist but aught to. It's essentially Dyslexic or Non-Iconographic but for verbal language:

Your brain (or whatever you have that processes information) is not hardwired for verbal communication. You can hear language and maybe even recognize that it is language and a form of communication, but it's all gibberish to you. You start with no verbal comprehension of your native language and may never acquire a verbal comprehension of any language. You may eventually learn to identify particular sounds and connect them to particular actions in very basic ways, similar to a soldier learning that one whistle means danger and two whistles means all clear, or how wolves how to let eachother know where different packs are. But the moment sounds start to get strung together with syntax and grammer it's all gibberish with maybe one or two meaningful sounds in the midst. You get "Walk" and what it means, but you can't tell the difference between "too tired to go on a walk" and "let's go on a walk."

This doesn't mean you can't understand complex concepts! Unless you also have dyslexia you can still understand written language in all it's complexity, Unless you have Non-Iconographic you can still understand complex abstract symbols, and unless you have innumerate your still capable of performing basic mathematics and learning complex abstract mathematics. If you have both Non-Linguistic and Dyslexia you have no understanding of language at all and can only formulate or communicate concepts in terms of abstract symbols and mathematics.

You can't learn or use any skill that is heavily or entirely reliant on verbal language unless you can learn it and use it through non-verbal means. For example, unless you also have dyslexia, you could learn diplomacy and use it primarily through writing. Even with dyslexia you could learn diplomacy and use it with the Disarming Smile perk, and through a Gesture skill.

The combination of Non-Linguistic, Dyslexia, Innumerate, and Non-Iconographic removes just about any capacity for formulating and communicating abstract ideas. At that level formulating complex ideas can only be done through direct personal experience of the complexity of the scenario. Nobody is ever going to explain the emotions wheel to you, but you can still learn what emotions are for yourself, recognize them in others, empathize, learn personality differences, and perform emotional work. All of which is IQ based, cognitively difficult, and which pets regularly do for their owners, and wild animals regularly do for eachother (at least among social animals.) Combine all of that with Hidebound restricting higher order creativity and Low TL lowering the creatures TL to 0, and you have a species that cannot even make use of the majority of TL 0 technologies, and which has no chance of ever evolving past them.

On top of that animals do mostly have reduced intelligence. The average domestic dog has intelligence equivalent to a human toddler between the ages of 2.5 and 5 depending on the toddler in question and the dog in question. An ordinary IQ for a 5 year old is 7. Assuming that some portion of the difference in intelligence can be accounted for by the host of cognitive disadvantages the dog has, I'd error on giving the dog an IQ appropriate to the higher end of that. If you add the above trait to an IQ 7 creature you have a very convincing "dog" level of intelligence. Adding +3 to most animals IQs while keeping their perceptions and wills, and adding the above traits, seems to track, IMO.

Such an animal very capable of learning social skills like Savoire Faire (dog), Body Language (mammals), intimidate, leadership, gesture, and perhaps even a highly specialized version of psychology. It's capable of navigating to the extent you can navigate without maps and equipment and assuming it's had the oppertunity to learn, it probably has area knowledge of the environment it lives in if allowed to roam freely, it almost definitely has weather sense, wolves even use a form of tactics for complex and coordinated divide and conquer ambushes. But it's skill levels are going to be at a 'precocious toddler' level for anything that it can't justify shunting over to it's perception score instead of it's IQ (which animals are prone to doing, for example with the weather sense skill.)

Note that many animals also have traits like Impulsive, that manners are a relatively modern invention and animals are likely to have odious personal habits we excuse because we don't hold them to our standards, and that wild animals are likely all suffering from some form of trauma from living in a perpetual eat or be eaten wilderness survival scenario* that combines with other racial personality traits to create the behaviors that the "Bestial" trait is likely referencing.

*: this is conjecture based on the evidence that people often develop complex long term trauma from survival scenarios, and scenarios in which things might regularly try to hurt or kill them, and that animals can develop PTSD, including complex PTSD, as well.